Considering the overt or sublime connections biblical scholars increasingly indicate between biblical texts and empires, this contribution engages the need for the theorisation of empire beyond material depiction. It is suggested that empire is primarily of conceptual nature and a negotiated notion, a constantly constructed entity by both the powerful and the subjugated, to which the concomitant responses of subversion and attraction to empire attest. The discussion is primarily related to the first-century CE context, arguing also that postcolonial analysis provides a useful approach to deal with (at least, some of) the complexities of such research.

Theorising Empire: Initial considerations

First-century CE Mediterranean life was largely determined by the omnipresent and ostensibly omnipotent Roman Empire in its various forms and guises. The material reality of imperial imposition was unavoidable for first-century people, constantly reinforced by visual images and verbal or written decrees, through military presence and social systems. The Empire made its presence felt in tangible and visible ways,1 in step with imperial ideology. This dictated the continuous reinforcement in various ways of both the imperial presence and the required responses (including senses) of submissiveness to it. With an all pervasive Empire the consciousness and worldview of first-century people around the Mediterranean would not have remained oblivious of or unaffected by Roman imperial presence and practice, even if such influence is difficult to always plot historically accurately.

Plotting its influence is from the outset complicated by the presence of material and discursive imperialism, as well as their interrelatedness. Material or historical imperialism already sculpted and determined the daily lives of first-century people in a myriad of ways, but so also did discursive imperialism at the level of consciousness or in terms of ideology. In other words, a territorial understanding of Empire maintained through military force (as one important material element) will always be important to make sense of the Roman Empire. But, at the same time, for the largest part the Empire was sustained through hegemony that was reliant upon a multivalent and complex paradigm of socio-political power to achieve and maintain its authority and control. More than only direct military action, the Romans sustained and wielded the imperium through a combination of recourse to force, social structures and systems as well as through ideological, imperial propaganda. Like other (earlier and later) empires, it propounded a sense of moral virtue and beneficence, claiming to exist and function with a vision of reordering the world's power relations for the sake and betterment of all.2 The totality of this socio-political framework (discursive imperialism) was more powerful and certainly more pervasive than its material enactment alone, even if accounting for its possible relation to the New Testament is not necessarily easier.

The study of the possible influence and impact of Empire on the communities and texts of the New Testament has of late generated not only discussion but also criticism. The notion of tracing and accounting for the impact of Empire on the early followers of Jesus in this broader sense and, in as far as can be gleaned from the texts, is burdened by many assumptions and dangers.3 Adequate theorising of empire4 amidst contemporary and popular talk of empire needs more than a one-sided focus on the Empire's military or political-economic underpinnings, as much as it needs to move beyond the all too often celebratory, sensational or anti-sociological approaches of popular culture. Formulating an accountable, anthropological approach to Empire is key, alert to the cultural making of value and viewing Empire as more than an elitist project, and focused on the socio-historical and contextualised understanding of empire.5 That is, 'to question the singular thingness that the term empire suggests by identifying the many fissures, contradictions, historical particularities, and shifts in imperial processes' (Lutz 2006:593). Acknowledging the complexities involved in theorising empire at both material and discursive levels requires an appropriate grammar and vocabulary to plot first-century power relations and its structural organisations.

The focus here is on theorising empire, trying to formulate some broad perimeters for discussing empire. With primary a theoretical interest, I aim towards a framework for understanding the construal and nature of possible connections (implicit or otherwise) between New Testament texts6 and Empire. In short, current perceptions about texts which possibly relate to Empire are impacted upon when empire is understood as a multifaceted, conceptual and negotiated entity.

Empire in the first century CE: Overt and surreptitious

The overt categories of imperial structures, systems and mechanisms are the proverbial tip of the iceberg when it comes to empire in New Testament times. Empire was co-constituted by various key interlinking, overlapping and (even) inchoate spheres, including a centralised seat of ultimate power and military conquest; the system of patronage; a rhetoric of peace, prosperity and concord; and the imperial cult (e.g. Horsley 1987:87-90; 2000:74-82). Their importance is beyond dispute, even if their complex nature and involvement with a range of other related (and unrelated) properties already make accurate description and proper analysis difficult. Yet, regardless of how the material or historical realities of Empire are arrayed, its pluriform materiality remains a first important - even if not the most vital - focus.

Aspects of imperial materiality

The overt manifestation of Empire had its basis in Roman power primarily situated in its vast military force in the form of generally well-trained and well-resourced legions which operated both ruthlessly and efficiently. Punishment for dissention and sedition was harsh, and the cross was the ultimate symbol of Roman power and cruel brutality. Its justice was not limited to foreigners and lower classes but at times even held Roman provincial governors accused of wrongdoing accountable before the courts. Roman taxes were at least as brutal and cut a broad width. Whilst legitimised as recompense for receiving privileges wrought by Empire such as peace and security or freedom and justice, taxes more often served to increase the magnificence and opulence of the elite who ultimately benefitted from imperial machinations.7

Local elites were the cutting edge of Empire and its public face for the majority of people, and an indispensible aspect of the imperial machinery.8 Through their 'government without bureaucracy' (Garnsey & Saller 1987:20-40), the Empire yielded administrative authority9 to indigenous elites with a twofold purpose.10 Local elites kept the imperial wheels turning in the provinces in particular, ensuring collection of tribute, organising business and politics, and garnering support for Empire by conferring benevolence and granting public works programmes. At the same time, elites were crucial to imperial divide and rule-politics (Moore 2006b:199), taking the blame for popular resentment and even uprisings while the imperial powers secured their authority in remoteness and unavailability.11 For theorising Empire, it means that rather than trying to understand its nature from an inward looking perspective, a measure appropriate for the Republic, the Empire first has to be understood from the outside, from the provinces before looking inward (Millar 1966:166).

Patronage was another cultural-convictional or ideological aspect that manifested in material ways as part of Empire's overt manifestation, but also regulated much of it. 'Far from trying to eradicate traditional patronage relationships, emperors encouraged their continuation, in part because they were the main mechanism for recruitment of new members of the imperial elite' (Garnsey & Saller 1987:201). With the Emperor as ultimate patron, his power devolved to other patrons, each with a circle of influence as well as a group of underling-patrons, continuing in a never-ending extension of the patronage system (cf. Chow 1997). Criss-crossing through socio-political, economic and cultural systems and structures, the patronage system's significance stood firm in its vastness, making its importance difficult to overrate.

Aspects of imperial ideology

An ideological framework underwrote the Roman Empire in its materiality. By the beginning of the first century, having conclusively dealt with its main rival, Carthage, the Roman Empire had established itself as an overriding political force, replete in an indulgent network of power, influence and wealth. Imperial ideology was reciprocally connected to symbols of its power; the symbols informing ideology and ideology justifying the symbols. With imperial ideology built upon revisiting the ideals of the old republic, Empire prided itself as a democratic institution, the pretence of which was underwritten by notions of liberty and justice.12 After the civil war, Augustus was often upheld as herald of peace to the Empire and the world at large.13 Soon enough, claims to such values and achievements were ascribed to the benevolence of other emperors also, and individually and collectively presented as (good news).14

Poets and historians like Virgil, Horace, Livy and others, created in their different ways 'a grand narrative of empire, a long eschatology which has now reached its climax' (Elliott 2007:183).15 In the court of Augustus, the story of Rome was told as the culmination of a long process of training and preparation for Empire to assume its destined role as world ruler.16 The emperors' own ideology mongering is shown in achievements claimed by Augustus on behalf of the Roman people and the world and inscribed as memorial (Res Gestae Divi Augusti). Imperial conquest, domination and subjection of other peoples are described as bestowing on them the friendship and fidelity of the Roman people.17 The defeat of other peoples through conquest and warfare was portrayed as the miraculous achievement of the Pax Romana, as worldwide peace. The breadth of imperial ideology and propaganda meant that the Roman world was saturated:

with a carefully managed repertoire of images depicting the piety and benevolent potency of the emperor, and of the routinized representations and celebrations of those virtues through a ubiquitous imperial cult. (Elliott 2007:183)

Roman imperial ideology, pervasive as it was in the firstcentury Mediterranean world, underwrote Empire's continued existence.18 Rather than military strength, the longevity and vibrancy of the Roman Empire increasingly relied upon the growing consensus that Roman rule was justified, a consensus itself that was a product of the complex interaction between the centralised power of Empire in Rome and its remote peripheries, the outlying provinces or colonies (Ando 2000). Central to this was a religious fibre which significantly affected Empire's discursive imperialism as well as its materiality, and finally, also requires some attention.

Empire and emperor in religious garb

Roman ideological propaganda in a first-century context with its interwoven political, social, cultural and religious sentiments in particular, has led some to talk rather of Roman imperial theology (Crossan 2008:59-73). The ideological glue that kept Roman civilisation together, imperial theology would have had a fourfold basis of power,19 like the rest of Roman civilisation, mythology and religion. Whilst Roman civilisation was founded on imperial theology and it in turn centred on the divinity of the Emperor, it involved more than 'the emperor cult.'20 Other characteristics of imperial theology included the promotion of imperial divinity, with its ideological underpinnings and associated practices, not restricted to outlying provinces but with presence closer to Rome, too. The success of Imperial theology rested largely on its effective dissemination through appropriation by means of imperial-aligned elites throughout the Empire (cf. Ando 2000), and relied upon oblique and indirect references to the divinity of the living Augustus.21 Divine status was attributed to emperors as dynastic and imperial prerogative, including the Julio-Claudian (esp. Julius Caesar, Augustus) but later also the Flavian dynasties (esp. Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian). Imperial theology, finally, was promoted vigorously through images and structures, including poems, inscriptions, coins and images, statues, altars and other structures.22

Probably for obvious reasons, New Testament research on the religious dimension of Empire have in the past mostly focussed on the emperor cult,23 claiming inter alia that by mid-first century it was the fastest growing religion (Wright 2005:64). Indeed, in the East of Empire, where traditionally rulers were regarded as divine,24 the emperor-cult grew strongly and cities benefitted by receiving rewards of various kinds. Building programmes saw temples erected in honour of the emperor, accompanied by the restructuring of cities such as Ephesus and by other activities such as games, festivals and other celebrations in honour of the emperor.

In addition to encouraging the worship of imperial gods, emperors were often included among those worshipped.25 Initially, emperors were declared divine by the senate only posthumously, but outside of Rome and already during the time of the New Testament, living emperors were increasingly worshipped as gods - as Empire's divine 'saviours' (Ehrman 2008:28).26 Few emperors attempted to claim divine honours for themselves, their insistence on the divinity of their predecessors often served to reinforce their own positions of power. This practice ensured that the claim by any given serving emperor to be a 'son of god' was not uncommon at the time, even if the relationship between the emperor and predecessor was mostly one of adoptive kinship, as in the case of Octavian/Augustus.27

Recent studies on the imperial cult, its position and operation in communities has focused on the essential role that leading citizens themselves played through local initiatives. Also, the great variation in practice from city to city meant that there was no single unified imperial cult. Forms of worship were occasioned by negotiations locally and with the authorities in Rome, and constituted a means of conveying, in religious terms, the new power structures with which communities now had to cope (Price 2004).28 In short, the emperor cult was but one, albeit important, element of a much more pervasive religious dimension29 which was part of the imperial system.

In conclusion, Empire was material, ideological and religious (religion?), but also more and less than that! Its materiality was evident for all to see, in its plural, bewildering ways as well as in subtle frames. Whilst imperial ideological efforts criss-crossed through all overt imperial form and function, it was assisted by provincial elites, likewise eager to develop their versions of imperial splendour in imagery and ritual, to demonstrate the new configuration of power in their cities.30 Imperial imposition by sword or other forms of compulsion generally proved unnecessary, that is, as long as the perceived benefits of imperial rule appeared to exceed its distractions.31 The overt penetration of imperial presence and power into all spheres of life, as well as its intimate but elusive relations to structures and systems on social, economic and political levels is a challenge for theorising Empire but also for credibly accounting for its reach and impact.

Framing and understanding Empire as concept

The argument to this point can be consolidated in three claims about Empire. Firstly, Empire was quite evidently a 'structural reality', comprised of and operating in terms of a principal binary of centre and margins, where centre is often symbolised by a city and margins are that which are subordinated to the centre - at a political, economic or cultural level.32 Secondly, structurally Empire was not a uniform phenomenon in temporal or spatial sense but 'differentiated in constitution and deployment' regardless of many remaining similarities.33 It is with a third, and more contested claim about Empire that further theorisation becomes vital. The claim is that the reach and power of Empire was of such an extent that it influenced and impacted in direct and indirect, in overt and subtle ways, 'the entire artistic production of center and margins, of dominant and subaltern, including their respective literary productions' (Segovia 1998:56-57).34 The unrelenting material presence and ideological influence, traversing other dimensions of firstcentury life, across a geographically spread of communities, makes good sense in a conceptual framework or theoretical reflection that incorporates two further, important claims about Empire.

Therefore, in addition to the structural, differentiated and influential nature of Empire, a fourth claim is that, all considered, empire is primarily a conceptual entity to which its material form(s) attest - even admitting mutuality between structure and idea does not reverse the conceptual primacy! Studies of the modern phenomenon of empire35 also focus on empire as construct, a concept, not a nation, and thus without boundaries. Other traits of empire have also emerged above as true of the Roman Empire, too. The concept of empire is unencumbered by borders as it postulates a regime that effectively encompasses all reality (the civilised world), in the total sense of the word. Also, empire's rule extends beyond the material and therefore exercises its influence not only on human bodies but on human psychology as well. Empire 'creates the very world it inhabits', which includes the material or external as well as the internal world as ultimate bio-power. Finally, the concept of empire is always committed to peace, which is a peace that transgresses all conventional boundaries to become 'a perpetual and universal peace outside of history'36 (Hardt & Negri 2000:xv).

The power of its underlying imperial world view was also the key reason why the Roman Empire did not require constant bloody war and conquest, or continuous subjugation in a vulgar way, to sustain its power - not that there were not also many instances of such practices (even by the hand of Roman emperors). This explains why the image of Romans as expert military strategists in the modern sense is illusionary. The status and security of the Roman emperors and powerful elite largely depended on their perceived ability to inflict violence. Contrary to expectations, protecting the boundaries of their realm appeared a smaller concern for emperors and elite. Overshadowed by compulsive reaction to what was considered an insult, their reactions do not provide evidence of considering possible risks in relation to potential advantages, and of often having been oblivious to expertise37 (Mattern 1999).

Beyond restrictive, essentialist understandings of empire,38 it can be theorised as both dynamic and primarily a process, in its conceptualising as well as its constant fabrication. Accounting for interaction and mutuality, complex but potent, between an underlying imperial worldview and its material manifestations, profits from theorising Empire as concept. Equally, theorising it as concept can invest new potential in analyses of Empire and suggest alternative understandings of its overt and covert presence and influence, without foreclosing on other complexities. But, both for theorising first century Empire and also for framing the understanding of possible links between it and the New Testament in mappings of space and power, a fifth and final important theoretical consideration is crucial - as is referencing some texts.

Empire as negotiated concept

If complicated interrelations are in the end that which constitute empire, attraction to and subversion of Empire, as two opposite positions, characterise the New Testament, they serve not only as markers of a wider range (ambit) of relating to empire, but also sustain the negotiated nature of empire.39 Of course, no (social) programme for political action against Empire is found in the New Testament, not even in undisguised, anti-imperial rhetoric such as found in Revelation 13. In addition, it does not show evidence of upfront imperialist propaganda, not even in ostensibly proimperial texts such as Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2. However, with Empire as concept, a structured notion with its existence dependant on ongoing engagements and negotiations, the question is whether such inklings can be traced to New Testament texts. Thinking of Empire as negotiated entity and as impacting and affecting people's lives, and in the end possibly also their literary legacy, the New Testament makes for interesting reading and feeds into our theorisation.40 For our purposes, New Testament texts' hints about Empire can be grouped around resistance against and attraction to Empire.

Resistance against Empire, amidst ambiguities

Literary and other evidence of resentment towards or at least ambivalence about Roman imperialism exists, even in Empire's inner circles, of which the famous words of Cicero is a good example.41 However, the level of antipathy and the extent to which such resentment translated into active revolts among people subordinated to Roman rule, and the nature of such protest and resistance, is difficult to determine.42 Some scholars understood these actions as part of active and popular protest against the Roman authorities (Horsley 2003d:35). Others argue for a more complex socio-political landscape, and caution that revolts such as that of Judas the Galilean was probably more the result of animosity for being replaced by the Herodian aristocracy, describing their banditry as 'the last efforts of a dying social class to regain its former position of wealth and status within Palestinian life' (e.g. Freyne 1988:50-68, esp. 58).

The New Testament texts probably imbibe similar tensions and possibly even subversive notions toward the Roman Empire. For some, incidents from the life of Jesus as portrayed in the Gospels are telling of both his subversive approach to the political authorities of the day, 'speaking truth to power', as well as the popular, local support he garnered among Galileans and Judeans: the triumphant entry into Jerusalem during the time of the Passover festival, and the 'cleansing' of the Temple are often mentioned (Horsley 2008).43 With the Roman imperial context as underlying canvas, new questions emerge about the first-century portrait of Paul.44 For example, what impression would the Pauline emphasis on judgement, according to works (Rm 2:12-16) have made in an ideological context where the superiority of Roman people was celebrated? Or, how would the Pauline insistence on faithfulness () 'apart from works ' have resonated where Roman patronage and the 'works' of benefactors determined people's lives and livelihood - as ultimately underwritten by the emperor as benefactor par excellance who readily claimed his 'works' (cf. Augustus and the Res Gestae)? How would Paul's proclamation of a single ancestor for all people of the world, Abraham as father of faith but also the 'impious' ,have been perceived in a world where the imperial ideology relied on the legacy of piety exemplified in Aeneas' portrayal? (Elliott 2007:186).

To stay with Paul for a moment, even though the subversive potential of his portrayal of Jesus (cf. 1 Cor 1:23-24; 1 Cor 15:24) and relativisation of earthly rule is nowadays more readily acknowledged, such admission does not imply agreement on Paul's stance and actions (explicit or implied) towards the Empire. For some, Paul's position towards Empire merely meant that he subsumed earthly authority and power under God's heavenly power and justice, and the social and political consequences of Christ's universal authority boil down to 'a challenge to rulers to understand the basis of their authority and a call to them to seek God's justice for those whom they rule' (Bryan 2005:92).45 In contrast, others argue that even the ostensible pro-regime Romans 13 should be read along with Romans 12, which renders a different understanding of Romans 13 and a series of oppositional Pauline claims: undermining and subverting Empire through an apocalyptic challenge; arguing for a transformed body politic; undermining the basis of imperial power, namely honour; undermining the violent ethic of Empire, calling rather blessings onto the enemy; rejecting the imperial path through conquest; denying Rome any divine authority; contrasting the body politic of Jesus with the Roman Empire defined by wrath and sword; and, calling upon the community to love (Keesmaat 2007:141-158; cf. Elliott 2007:187; Wright 2005:78-79). Yet others argue that 'Jesus' alternative vision did not challenge or seek to radically alter the colonial apparatus' (Sugirtharajah 2002:87-91), notwithstanding some Empire-critical Gospel-sayings.46 Lacking evidence that Jesus challenged the expropriation of land by imperial forces, it seems as if even amidst Jesus' alternative vision, the maintenance of the status quo is presupposed. In the end, 'Jesus is seen as a protector of the weak rather than as a protester against the system which produces and perpetuates predatory conditions' (Sugirtharajah 2002:87-91).

For many scholars at least antipathy towards Empire is present in the New Testament texts, even if the course of action (e.g. opposition; subversion; conflict) and scope of engagement (e.g. intra-community; society-based; structural or personal; conventional or cultural) is not as easily determined. But the situation is more complicated, as antipathy towards Empire is not the only response reflected in New Testament texts.

Attraction of Empire amidst ambiguities

A negative disposition towards the Roman Empire would be in line with the (a?) biblical and prophetic tradition (e.g. Is 33:22; cf. Mk 1:15) which acknowledges God as ruler of all, and avoids 'privatized, depoliticized, and generally domesticated Jesuses' (Bryan 2005:9). Whether this entails that biblical tradition is not intent on destroying or bluntly replacing one set of human power structures with others, but rather 'consistently confronting them with the truth about their origin and purpose' (Bryan 2005:9) is another question.47 The apocalyptic scenario permeating many texts assumed the replacement of existing human structures with another, divine dispensation; nor is divine purpose attributed to imperial powers or are their ideological claims shared.48 The silence-based argument about texts' general tenor not showing unequivocal criticism of rulers and their rule, or explicit calls for (violent) action against them (e.g. Bryan 2005), may be early indications of accommodation to Empire. Texts such as Matthew 22:17-21; Romans 13:1-7; 1 Peter 2:1317; or Acts,49 however, more than hint at accommodation to

Empire, going in a different direction from the notion of calling authorities to (God's) order. The point is that suggestions about accommodation to Empire in New Testament texts are inadequate, not for claiming too much, but for claiming too little!

Tolerance (accommodation) is too soft a term to describe the attraction to empire, and tends to slight over simultaneous distanciation, revulsion, and subversion (if not active resistance) towards it. Beyond the question whether the attraction of empire is exhausted by a goal of enlistment in trying to make sense of texts such as Romans 13 or Acts, those on the downside of imperial power often avail themselves of empire's structures and rhetoric. Beyond pragmatism, in what can be described as mimicry, those outside the imperial centre often borrow, take up from empire, in order to achieve similar accoutrements as brought about by imperial affiliation (such as power, status, wealth), even if along different lines and for different purposes. Amidst the powerful, political manoeuvres and overtures of the imperial mighty ones, the subalterns were engaged in actions of negotiating their positions anew (Price 2004:176).50

The attraction of empire is a powerful mechanism through which apparent opposition to empire is co-opted, and translated into alter-empire. A rhetoric of alter-empire is built around the proposition of 'a parallel, more powerful imperial structure and presence to that which is being made manifest in the world' (Aymer 2005:141). If dealing with Empire means its replacement with another, even if metaphysical, the same imperial rhetoric is bound to surface, complete with potentially (world-)devastating consequences.51 An alterempire lens exposes the influence of imperial logic in the New Testament: Revelation portrays an alternative, divine empire equally soaked in blood (cf. Rv 14); Matthew ascribes all authority in heaven and earth to Jesus (Mt 28:18); Jesus is born as the commander-in-chief of the entire heavenly army (Lk 2:13); the representative of Rome identifies Jesus rather than the emperor as Son of God (Mk 15:39); Jesus disrupts imperial time with a new sense of eternity (Jn 1:1-2); Paul called for an otherworldly citizenship (Phlp 3:20) and anticipated the annihilation of his opponents (1 Th 2:16, 5:3); and so forth52 (cf. Aymer 2005:144-145). An alter-empire postulated and even propagated in the New Testament is not a notion that will surprise postcolonial analysts; in fact, Empire is often resisted not with that which is contrary to empire (anti-empire), but rather with a difference in agency (alter-empire).53

Attraction of empire entails more than tolerating propaganda, the ideological image of political stability and peace, and economic security and progress (= control) as the benefits of empire - whether through empire's self-portrayal or the perceptions generated by its direct, implicated and indirect beneficiaries. Attraction of empire is about its appeal, its perceived 'rationality', including normality, properness and order.54 All of life is integrated in what can be called an imperial framework project, and no effort, forceful, persuasive or otherwise, is spared to prove the framework as rational and beneficial to all. Problems show up when it is challenged, or when the power source or material means that maintains it collapses, or when the majority of people are no longer convinced that it is indeed a proper and rational framework.

Since interactions with the Roman Empire constructed from (through) New Testament texts were hardly univocal or monolithic, the notions of (a position of) subversion and (an attitude of) attraction can be useful, but only when not posited as necessarily mutually exclusive. Positions towards Empire were dynamic, not simply static positions 'for' or 'against', as people's responses to and interactions with Empire were infinitely more complex and hybrid than merely those of singular support or opposition.55

Negotiating empire: (Postcolonial) Tools of the Trade?

Naming and describing postcolonial criticism is difficult given the hybridity of its subject matter in various aspects (practitioners, ideological concerns, its subject matter; is it about texts or practices, about psychological conditions of historical processes, cf. Mongia, in Gallagher 1996:229), because it is a relatively new approach, but also because of the imperialist tendencies incorporated in the impulse and act of definition.

A final question is what, methodologically, is needed and warranted for approaching Empire and biblical studies along such lines: Empire as primarily a conceptual entity, existing through on-going choices and negotiations between rulers and subjects, notwithstanding its military power and ensuing oppression and subjection of people? Different reading paradigms render different understandings of empire and biblical texts' interaction with Empire,56 but postcolonial work is particularly well placed to deal with the New Testament and Empire relation.57 Alert to the literary nature of New Testament texts, postcolonial readings show upon indeterminacy and instability that can be identified in many texts (cf. Burrus 2007:153), investigating power, language, and the imagery of New Testament texts, as well as the socio-political structures and power relations it draws upon (cf. Schussler Fiorenza 2007:4-5). Postcolonial work goes beyond anti-imperial readings,58 since the understanding of what constitutes the colonial and the imperial provides new challenges, not least the ever-present danger of overlooking alter-imperial rhetoric, of re-inscribing privilege and power.59 In picking up on surface-level and underlying tensions in texts, postcolonial biblical criticism is useful and effective in studying Empire not only as material setting but also as heuristic grid for biblical interpretation (cf. Punt 2010b).60

A postcolonial perspective does not neglect material analysis, neither investigations of Empire as cultural production nor as social matrix. The analysis of the texts from early Christianity in the light of the broader sociocultural context prevailing around the Mediterranean constitutes a first dimension of a postcolonial optic. It conceives of Empire as 'omnipresent, inescapable and overwhelmingly socio-political reality - the reality of Empire, of imperialism and colonialism,61 as variously constituted and exercised during the long period in question' (Segovia 1998:56).62 Crucial to such literary and historical work, ideological reflection on historical and discursive imperialism and colonialism63 marks another dimension of postcolonial work.

In addition to material analysis and ideological investigation, postcolonial work in the third place acknowledges that imperialism and colonialism is set in strong ambivalence, particularly also with regard to the relationship between the powerful and the powerless for which, for example, the notion of mimicry is often employed. Biblical texts are read without foreclosing on their ambiguities, without positing a strong resistance to Empire on one level as excluding collusion at another. A postcolonial perspective assists in accounting for both the attraction of empire in all its ambivalence and amidst resistance to it through mimicry, analysing the conceptual nature of empire through the hybridity of imperial power-mongers and subservient peripherals, dealing with identity and agency without resorting to the kind of simplicity and generalisation brought about by essentialism.64

Fourthly, its ability to provide a broader interpretative framework, the capacity to frame and scrutinise imperialism as reflected in biblical texts, to pick up on surface-level and underlying tensions in texts, positions postcolonial biblical criticism as useful heuristic grid for studying empire and Bible. This is no simple task in the presence of virulent problems such as determining textual pitch. On the one hand, biblical documents were hardly of imperial origin or 'public transcripts of power', determined largely by those who ruled, who had the resources, ability and reason to write. On the other hand, are biblical texts 'hidden transcripts' when they came from the literate and therefore higher classes,65accustomed to wealth and influence, from the privileged few of the time?66 To what extent and how do the texts convey something of the life and concerns of people more generally?

Finally, postcolonial raising of awareness about the neglected aspects of imperial and colonialist forces, structures and practices ranks as particularly important. With postcolonialism's reach extending to the global academic world, it provides, also, 'an ethical paradigm for a systematic critique of institutional suffering' (Gandhi 1998:174). In fact, postcolonial thinking in its insistence on a self-critical, reflexive attitude67 of investigators does not obliterate the attraction of empire even in academic work.68

Conclusion

Bearing in mind that it was structural and conceptual, differentiated and influential, and importantly, also negotiated, Empire remains the best description of what the Romans did in the first-century Mediterranean world in their domination over extended territories and diverse groups.69 The first-century Roman Empire was neither monolithic nor was it merely imposed in singular, simplistic fashion on passive, disinterested subjects, the profile of whom was equally composite and complex. But it was principally the distillation of sustained interaction between rulers and subjects, imperial forces and indigenous foreigners, with (without) intermediaries.

Framing Empire as negotiated concept does not deny but does intensify the inevitable imperial setting of New Testament documents, moving the discussion forward from a restricted focus on historical descriptions of material or ideological resources. If negotiations with imperial ideology and imposition were neither one-dimensional, nor devoid of intersecting and mutually informing, criss-crossing lines between empire and subjects, nor oblivious to imperial rub-off amidst resistance against it, Empire and the Bible studies can benefit from further theoretical and investigative work in these directions.70

Acknowledgements

Competing interests

The author declare that he has no financial or personal relationship(s) which may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this paper.

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Elliott, N., 2007, 'Political Formation in the Letter to the Romans', in R.L. Brawley (ed.), Character Ethics and the New Testament: Moral Dimensions of Scripture, pp. 179-190, Westminster John Knox, Louisville. [ Links ]

Elliott, N., 2008, 'The Apostle Paul and Empire', in R.A. Horsley (ed.), In the Shadow of Empire: Reclaiming the Bible as a History of Faithful Resistance, pp. 97-116, Westminster John Knox, Louisville. [ Links ]

Stowers, S.K., 1995, 'Greeks Who Sacrifice and Those Who Do Not: Toward an Anthropology of Greek Religion', in L.M. White & O.L. Yarbrough (eds.), The Social World of the First Christians: Essays in Honor of Wayne A Meeks, pp. 293-333, Fortress, Minneapolis. [ Links ]